Free spirit

Independent India was the culmination of a thousand rebellions, individual and collective. For many, the stories are still untold but the end, of liberation, is one they are proud of.

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Priya Sahgal

December 20, 2007

ISSUE DATE: December 31, 2007

UPDATED: August 15, 2008 00:47 IST

60 REVOLUTIONS — FREEDOM STRUGGLE

It was Mao Tse Tung who said that a revolution is not a dinner party. He added that there is nothing respectful, polite or modest about it. Yet it was not just the men but also women—modest housewives, polite and respectful 13-year-old girls—who took to the streets and fought against the British rule in India.

There is the curious case of a young married woman imprisoned in Lahore in the 1930s for taking part in an organised protest. When her husband learnt of it, he forbade her from returning home, saying that while he was proud that his wife had taken part in the nationalist movement, he was upset that she hadn’t taken his permission first.

As more and more women responded to Mahatma Gandhi’s call, it was also the beginning of the feminist movement in India. The struggle for independence transcended all barriers and prejudice.

An Indian lies in front of a cartload of imported clothes in Bombay in 1930

Seventy-seven today, she needs a walking stick, but her spirit remains unconquered.

She recalls how, when in jail, they were asked to name their parentage and the entire crowd replied in unison: “Father: Mahatma Gandhi; mother: India”—a far cry from today’s dynastic politics.

Torn minds

Free, but fractured. As the world slept on the midnight of August 14, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, stood in the Constituent Assembly and announced freedom with poetic flourish: “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge.” India emerged out of the long night of colonialism only to be feted in blood and hate. Freedom meant Partition, as India and Pakistan. The minds of the liberated too were partitioned, one of the most decisive mutilations in history. The script of sanguineous hate would be played out many more times in Independent India, in varying versions, always revealing the unhealed minds of the liberated.

August 18, 2003, India Today

“Gandhi, Nehru and Patel stood for ideals that went beyond freedom.

"It was not just about getting rid of foreigners but how you got rid of them,” says historian Ramachandra Guha.

Even 60 years later, there are many untold stories.

Now a sprightly 78, Pratima Kaushik was only 13 when sentenced to two-and-half months in Lahore Women’s Jail during the 1942 Quit India Movement.